How to Update HR Practices for Current Demands

I recently supported an HR leader at a 500-person organization through a transformation that felt small on paper but was massive in mindset. She didn’t come to me for consulting. She’s someone I knew who needed a sounding board, so I offered to help. She thought she needed to pull together a basic HR report. What we ended up building was a blueprint for how HR earns its seat at the business table. Here’s where we started: One core question: How does your work connect to how the business runs and grows? From there, we shifted the lens: • From reporting activity to delivering insight • From tracking turnover to protecting performance • From keeping up to leading forward We built a dashboard, not a deck, that spoke the language of the C-suite. And it changed how she showed up in the room. Some of the metrics we focused on: • Revenue per FTE – Are we getting the ROI on our talent investment • Top talent flight risk – Where are we at risk of losing our future leaders • Manager effectiveness – How are we enabling the front line of culture • Time to productivity – Are we onboarding for speed and success • Engagement drivers – What’s fueling or draining performance • Bench strength – Are we building capacity or just filling gaps We also layered in pulse trends, goal alignment, and internal mobility because strategy isn’t real unless it reaches people. She told me, “I finally feel like I’m leading HR, not just managing it.” That’s the shift. When HR stops waiting to be invited and starts leading with data, clarity, and intent, that’s when transformation begins. Not just for the function. For the whole business. #HRRealTalk #EmployeeExperience #PeopleAnalytics #HRLeadership #EmployeeEngagement #WorkforceStrategy #HRTransformation

After speaking with HR leaders at companies with 10,000–20,000+ employees, the message is clear: The problems haven’t changed. But the best HR leaders are changing how they show up to the CEO. 1. Drive revenue with talent data Top HR leaders tie hiring to growth. They track revenue per employee, cost of bad hires, and performance gaps. They benchmark competitors and use data to justify better compensation, not guesswork. 2. Cut through engagement fluff Forget vague surveys. Track regrettable turnover, time-to-productivity, and team-level attrition spikes. When managers lose good people, show the cost and the fix. 3. Link culture to profits Culture isn't soft. It’s financial. Toxic managers kill retention, productivity, and even customer NPS. Quantify the business loss and how leadership investment changes outcomes. 4. Spot talent risks early Top HR teams use flight-risk models, turnover heatmaps, and cost-of-replacement analysis. They give the CEO time to act before it hits the P&L. TL;DR: Modern HR drives business growth. Every people decision is a profit decision. Stop playing defense. Your CEO needs a strategic partner.

Is your HR team struggling to integrate analytics, technology, and operations? This might be the reason why. There's a shift happening, and it's time to rethink our approach to maturity frameworks. David Green 🇺🇦 recently highlighted the Directionally Correct podcast with Richard Rosenow speaking on the idea of a People Data Supply Chain, underscoring how deeply interconnected analytics, operations, and technology have become. Two critical gaps exist in our current maturity frameworks: 1️⃣ We lack a comprehensive model that addresses the intersection of all three functions 2️⃣ Existing frameworks tend to be linear, failing to capture complex organizational nuances Recognizing these limitations, I've developed the S.T.A.R.T. Framework – a flexible, non-prescriptive approach for HR organizations of all sizes: ✍🏾 Strategy: Align analytics, operations, and technology with HR and business objectives 💻 Technology: Optimize tools and data for scalability and efficiency 📊  Analytics: Transform HR data into actionable insights 📈 Results: Demonstrate meaningful impact and value ✨ Transformation: Foster a culture of agility and continuous innovation S.T.A.R.T. adapts to your organization's unique needs. As Cole Napper wisely noted, leaders need to "be excellent where the business needs you to be excellent" - and S.T.A.R.T. provides the flexibility to do just that. Dive deeper into the Framework below to see how it can help your organization navigate unexpected changes and prepare for the future of work. I'd love to hear your thoughts. How do you see this framework applying to your organization? #PeopleAnalytics #HRTech #HROperations #FutureOfWork

McKinsey’s HR Monitor 2025 just dropped—and the results are fascinating. Yes, HR is digitizing. AI tools are being adopted across talent acquisition, performance reviews, and workforce planning. But here’s the surprising insight buried in the data: 👉 More digital doesn’t equal more impact. In fact, only a small percentage of HR teams are seeing real results from their tech investments. Why? Because execution—not strategy—is the chokepoint. "Only 19% of core HR processes in Europe are currently enhanced with GenAI—while a further 32% remain stuck at the pilot stage" Although HR functions are investing in digital and AI tools, less than one in five have actually embedded AI in key workflows—or scaled digital services broadly. According to McKinsey, the HR teams getting the most value from digital tools share three characteristics: They align closely with people managers They design tools into human workflows, not around them And they treat tech as a way to amplify human connection, not automate it away The lesson? 🛠️ You can buy AI. 💡 You can’t buy adoption. This is a shift in mindset: HR transformation isn’t a tech problem—it’s a human integration challenge. Too many organizations treat digital HR as a portfolio of tools. But without equipping people to use them—especially people leaders—they stall at the pilot phase. If you want impact, start here: Put managers at the center. Make them co-designers, not end users. Invest in execution. Build change muscle, not just toolkits. Blend tech with design. Embed AI into learning, performance, and growth—not as an add-on, but as a core enabler. Because at the end of the day, HR’s future isn’t just digital. It’s human-led, tech-enabled, and execution-obsessed.

94% of HR leaders say they're unprepared for the AI revolution, yet Shopify's CEO just made AI proficiency a job requirement for their entire workforce. Today we analyzed Tobias Lütke's CEO of Shopify internal memo that created waves across the tech industry. AI ALPI observed three critical shifts that will reshape HR practices globally: → Performance reviews now include AI usage metrics at Shopify, creating a tangible measurement for digital literacy ↳ Teams must demonstrate why work can't be completed using AI before requesting additional headcount ↳ "Stagnation is almost certain, and stagnation is slow-motion failure. If you're not climbing, you're sliding." This represents the most aggressive enterprise-wide AI mandate we've documented from a major tech employer. What's fascinating is how Lütke positions AI as a multiplier rather than a replacement – turning 10X employees into 100X contributors. The memo reveals a fundamental truth: employees are now expected to become "AI-augmented knowledge workers" – a transition most HR departments haven't begun to address in their competency frameworks. In the 1980s, the introduction of spreadsheet software eliminated an estimated 400,000 bookkeeping jobs – but created 600,000 new financial analyst roles. AI's impact on knowledge work will likely follow a similar pattern but at exponentially greater scale. Is your organization building AI competency requirements into performance frameworks? Or are you still treating AI as optional? 🔥 Want more breakdowns like this? Follow along for insights on: → Getting started with AI in HR teams → Scaling AI adoption across HR functions → Building AI competency in HR departments → Taking HR AI platforms to enterprise market → Developing HR AI products that solve real problems #ShopifyAI #AIinWorkplace #FutureOfWork #HRTech #AITransformation #TobiLutke #LeadershipInnovation #DigitalWorkforce #AIMandate #TechHR #WorkplaceEvolution #AIProductivity #TalentTech

This Fortune article is so compelling. IBM’s CHRO shares an important lesson about AI in HR: it’s not about replacing people, it’s about empowering them to excel in more strategic, human-focused work. At IBM, they’ve shifted transactional HR tasks, like locating benefit info, to an AI bot. That frees the team to spend their time on employee development, culture building, and complex problem-solving, areas where AI simply can’t tread. But the article rightly points out that many organizations miss the mark. They spotlight AI as a cost-cutting tool and a job replacement lever, rather than a partner in workforce transformation. This resonates deeply with me. Too often, leadership fixates on what we can cut. Instead, we should be asking: How can we build? How can we prepare our people for tomorrow? Here are three reflections I’m bringing back to my network: AI as enabler, not replacement: Use AI to offload routine tasks, then invest the savings in upskilling your people. That’s how you futureproof your organization. Training is nonnegotiable: As IBM’s CHRO says, it's short sighted to focus on replacement instead of building capability. We have to double down on learning programs so people aren’t left behind. Reframe transformation as human evolution: The goal isn’t fewer people, it’s better use of human potential. AI should augment our strengths, not replace them. AI is redefining productivity. But success will be defined by how effectively we rewire roles, reskill people, and realign organizations around human strengths. Would love to hear how others are approaching this. Are you blending AI into HR or bigger parts of your org? How are you investing in people to match? #AI #HRtech #FutureOfWork #Upskilling #TransformationLeadership https://lnkd.in/e2KJMVzY

We had an awesome chat with Andy (CTO at SHRM) and Michelle (Head of People Ops at Hopper) a week ago. Here are my biggest takeaways: 📈 HR is now expected to lead continual business transformations The last 4 years have dramatically changed the expectations businesses have for their HR leaders. Shifts to remote/hybrid work, rapid headcount growth, subsequent contractions, and disruptions from AI have all demanded big changes from businesses and CEOs have looked to HR leaders to navigate them. It's no longer good enough to be a department that just runs a set of unchanging processes and operations -- executives expect HR to be modernizing as rapidly as the rest of the business. 🏃♂️ HR leaders need to be agile The business impacts of improving a process are being measured in shorter increments than ever. It's no longer acceptable to ask your stakeholders to suspend disbelief for a 12-18 month process or tool implementation before seeing results. You have to: - Pick the minimal subproblem you can solve to deliver value. Ex: "We're going to define and reconcile our job architecture for just Engineering at first, since that's where we're growing the most" - Roll out updates incrementally. Ex: "We'll run comp planning for HR & Finance departments in our new platform first to get feedback on the implementation before a full rollout" - Constantly get feedback on your changes from business stakeholders. If functional leaders don't understand or agree with process or tool changes you're making, they'll be dead on arrival 🔧 Make sure your tools are as nimble as you are The processes that serve your company today are not going to be the ones that serve your company tomorrow. If it's not headcount that's changing rapidly, it will be any one of the laundry list of other disruptions that we've observed over the last 4 years that demand adaptation and evolution. If you adopt a comp planning, workforce planning, or other solution that automates an HR process, you have to make sure that it allows you to change that process quickly, or either you or the tool will be left behind. We see agile HR leaders all too often abandon an inflexible tool that they've already paid for in favor of spreadsheets when their needs evolve past the initial implementation. Check out the rest of the conversation and the full recording in the comments below 👇